A friend and I were having a discussion recently about what it’s like to take this journey of faith.  We were sharing our personal struggles in finding God’s guidance in light of our circumstances in this fallen world.  My friend, who lives in a different part of China from where I live, was saying that he used to think this journey of faith was like hiking a mountain. 

You set out from the base with your eyes on the peaks in front of you, you put one foot in front of the other, you follow tiring trails and windy switchbacks, you get lost, you persevere, you rest, you meander for a while, you scout ahead, and ultimately, at the end of the day, you summit somewhere, you make camp–you visualize where you’ve come from, what you’ve accomplished, and where you’re headed tomorrow.   Upward and onwards…

This is the analogy (with a little artistic license) that my friend used to describe this walk of faith that we are on.  But his metaphor had begun to change in his mind as he was being confronted with a new culture and way of life.  Instead of a mountain, he told me, he now was wondering if the walk of faith wasn’t more like spelunking.  OK, he didn’t use that word, spelunking (i.e. to explore a cave); at least I don’t think he said that.  What he said was that he was beginning to feel as if the journey of faith is more like walking around in a dark cave.

You can’t see where you’re headed.  After a few minutes of movement, you can’t really determine where you’ve been.  If you’re careful, and you’ve left some markers, you can remember the path you’ve taken; but that doesn’t always make the way ahead of you any clearer.  It’s dark in a cave.  It’s wet, cold, and drafty.  If you don’t have your REI headlamp with you, the range of visibility is pretty dismal.  Stalagmites and stalactites are waiting to bump head and toe.  (Or is it toe and head?)  In a cave, your own insecurity tends to grow and lengthen with the echoes of your own footsteps.  You must intuit, more times than not and many more times than you’re comfortable with, that you are indeed moving in the right direction.  You must have faith that the cave leads somewhere you are meant to go.  You must cling to hope and fight off despair.

My friend didn’t take the analogy quite as far as I did.  I make it sound a bit more drastic and ominous than he intended I am sure, but I resonated with his insight.  I think part of his point was this: as we are journeying towards God, we have unrealistic expectations that the way ahead will be made clear to us.  We hope to see and experience a sense of progress, achievement, and accomplishment.  We know God is with us, so of course He’s the one telling us our exact coordinates as He gazes at his divine GPS tracker (??)

But In fact, the opposite may often be more true, or at the very least, more in line with reality.  We may not have any clear idea what lies just ahead of us.  Detours, delays, and dead ends abound.  God may know our exact location, but His two-way seems to be broadcasting on a slightly different frequency.  Static fills the airwaves when you’re miles below the earth…

So we’re off spelunking.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing.  Yetis like caves after all.  Just feels like one those head-slapping revelations you make along the way.  It’s not all caverns either, I know.  We’re not canaries in a coalmine or anything like that.  But sometimes, when the claustrophobia sets in or you feel the furry tip of a bat’s wing against your earlobe, you long for flashlights, starlight, or the blurry reflection of fresh snowfall on a distant mysterious peak.

Post-script disclaimer:  This post may seem directly related to our current forward-looking explorations in terms of life and work.  It actually IS NOT directly related to that.  These thoughts have been bouncing around in my head for many months now.  And another colleague reminded me recently that: "God does want us to have some sense of clarity…eventually."  Yeah, eventually.  So keep those headlamps burning!